Author: dunbarheritage

Unfortunately UK Government has responded to the petition calling for a reduction of VAT to 5% on approved repairs to listed buildings with a flat: “No Way Jose!”, neglecting to mention the devolved arrangements for heritage in Scotland. But anyway losing £2.5b is a sizeable amount. In context over the past year, Historic England has spent nearly £10 million in grants, HES this year around £4m, of which £1.4m is a block grant to the National Trust, not all of this towards is towards physical building improvements.

Meanwhile VAT on new buildings, which by and large reduce the heritage value of villages, towns and cities up and down the country, remains a whopping 0%. One wonder what this would be worth to the Exchequer?

Private listed property owners are preserving much of our built heritage for future generations, yet many may be struggling to maintain and repair their homes.

In 2012, the UK Government removed the zero rate of VAT for pre-authorised alterations to listed buildings. This may have been a blow to owners, but chances are you didn’t even know this benefit existed.

East Lothian Council has the opportunity to bid for regeneration funding for Dunbar. If successful, the funds would be used to establish a Conservation Area Regeneration Scheme (CARS) providing building repair grants to help improve properties in the area.

I received this in my inbox yesterday. I’ve been banging on about these issues since moving here in 2008 and got pretty much nowhere, so obviously welcome this proposal, at least in principle.

I’m getting in touch to let you know about an upcoming opportunity to get involved in discussions around ideas for addressing seemingly intransigent issues with some buildings within the Dunbar Conservation Area.

We are all aware of the detrimental effect of the poor state and appearance of a number of High Street buildings and others within the CA. This includes buildings which have sat empty and unused for years, all the while deteriorating and at increasing risk of permanent loss.

Thank you to the local gentleman who passed on this lyrical non-objection from Historic Environment Scotland to the planning application seeking permission to demolish yet another piece of Dunbar’s heritage.

Reading between the lines HES are saying very politely to the local planning authority that this is a building worth saving in its current context. While not a material consideration, the building could theoretically be moved to another location without entailing excessive costs (and has done so at least once before!). One wonders what the local planning authority will have to say about that should a proposal to move it emerge.

There is seemingly little interest in much of the ephemeral built heritage of Dunbar, so I was naturally intrigued when someone alerted me to a conversation taking place around the Dunbar Tin Tabernacle, the only relatively intact example to survive in East Lothian, to perhaps make use of it as an informal arts facility. I was not privy to the detailed conversation at the recent Dunbar Community Council and was completely unaware of any of those that preceded it, but it elicited the following most interesting reply: Continue reading “Death of a Tabernacle”

Sadly, East Lothian’s last Tin Tabernacle is very likely to be demolished. Despite being classed by the Buildings at Risk Register as one of several local buildings at ‘high risk’ (of decay or development), a developer now has the permissions they need to build on this sensitive site on the edge of the Dunbar Conservation area.

Yet the building is afforded no protection by law. The law seemingly states that any legal protection route could not be invoked whilst there was an active planning case under consideration, which to my simple mind seems at odds with the general policy to protect our built and historic heritage (OK this is a known known, but it applies equally to unknown unknowns). The risk category will no doubt move from ‘high’ to ‘critical’, but this is largely pointless as there is probably sod all that anyone can do, except perhaps to offer to take it away a re-erect it somewhere else. If I had the means and a site I would certainly think about it.

The Tin Tabernacle is a fascinating vernacular building, formerly a hall to St Anne’s Episcopal Church, which was also made of tin. There is a note in the parish history that the tabernacle was dismantled and transported to Dunbar all thew way from Falkirk, where it was no longer required.

St Anne’s “iron church”, on the other hand, was originally supplied by a Liverpool company in 1876, before the construction of the current church sometime after. The iron church was subsequently transported to Edinburgh in the late 1800s for use by another congregation.